


Following Tomorrow

by seasaltedwolverine



Category: The Tomorrow People (2013)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, I can only write 1.5k words before it turns into angst, Kisses, What's John do on his day off, he's hot but he's a homeless bum, writing for a dead fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-11-03 17:55:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17882480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seasaltedwolverine/pseuds/seasaltedwolverine
Summary: He’s human now. Just human.  There’s no one hunting him, no danger in every movement, no terror to force down under years of training. There’s something to be said for not being special. It feels like breathing for the first time in years, the first time since he can remember. He walks a lot, not caring who sees him, seeing the little details of bricks and sidewalks and buildings. Not something you get to see when teleporting.





	Following Tomorrow

He’s human now. Just human. There’s no one hunting him, no danger in every movement, no terror to force down under years of training. There’s something to be said for not being special. It feels like breathing for the first time in years, the first time since he can remember. He walks a lot, not caring who sees him, seeing the little details of bricks and sidewalks and buildings. Not something you get to see when teleporting.

The world is so much bigger and brighter and more beautiful than he can ever remember it. He can’t jump to the top of a skyscraper to watch the sunrise anymore. But the trade off comes watching the sun work its way into the corners of the city as it wakes up. It’s mundane and boring and beautiful.

He’s sitting at one of the little tables outside a café, just reveling in the luxury of sitting and watching the bustle of humanity in the street. The street is far from quiet, but people’s thoughts are locked inside their heads, out of reach. 

No one wants him dead or strapped to a table. It’s a nice feeling. The world didn’t end and ULTRA as he knew it is a thing of the past. Every secret and lie he’s lived with for the last 6 years is out and the hiding is over. No one’s lives rest in his hands. It feels like weight off his shoulders. No one needs John Young right now. It feels fair, like atonement, like freedom.

The sun creeps over the roofline of the next building, bringing light and warmth to his little corner. He closes his eyes in the face of the sun, enjoying the morning glow. 

Some one slides into the chair across from him and all the sudden he’s not safe. He’s sitting in the open, a vulnerable target. He opens his eyes only to be dazzled by the sun and reaches out with his mind before he remembers he can’t any more. 

He blinks against the sunlight, trying to force down a lifetime of protocol on actionable threats.

“Hey stranger”

It’s Astrid, her smile warm as sunlight. He really can’t help his answering grin even if he can’t see her

“I’ve got the day” 

He doesn’t understand at first, but she leads him around to her point. 

“Thought you would like to wander with me.” She offers.

A month ago, not even, to spend the day on nothing, topside, unthinkable. To spend the day with Astrid, a daydream, a what if scenario, barely considered before reality pushed in.

But he can have this now.

He really does not mean to kiss her as much as he does. Its just so easy. They’re constantly in each others space, almost by accident. She’s tucked under his arm, so he turns his head and puts a gentle kiss on her hair. It could easily be termed a friendly gesture. They walk down the side walk fingers intertwined, so he brushes a kiss over her knuckles. Maybe that’s gentlemanly. He’s standing just a little too close packed in a subway car, so he presses a kiss to the apple of her cheek to make her smile at him. There’s a blush rising in her cheeks and there’s look that’s a bit more than friendly between them

He keeps expecting the push of her mind on his, wanting to be let in, but she’s perfectly happy to let him keep kissing her. And he is perfectly happy to do so. It’s a heady kind of paradise that still doesn’t quite feel real. He listens to her talk about anything and he can’t hear the workings of her mind as she says it. But he knows that her every word is sincere. Even with out the constant proof of telepathy, he just knows. 

She kisses him too, soft kisses on the cheek when she can reach him, but she’s quite a bit shorter than him so there are a handful of kisses where she has to lean up against him only to reach his jaw.

The sky is just growing dark when he finally gets her home. They get as far as her front door before things get a little awkward. Her parents still aren’t back from their cruise. He has nowhere to sleep, yet. He hasn’t really thought that far ahead. 

“I- I’m fine really- I’ll uh- figure out something”

“No, you won’t just come in”

He really just wants to lean in and kiss her on her doorstep and then leave, make a good end to a perfect day. But he can’t do that if she wants him to come in. This thing they have between them is fragile and soft and so so infinitely precious. John really really doesn’t want to screw it up and being invited into a girl’s house with her parents away seems like a really good way to screw things up. 

But some how he finds himself in Astrid’s living room while she throws blankets at her couch. It feels like it should be awkward but somehow it’s, just, not.

“Thank you,-” he says and realizes he needs to thank her for so much. For seeing him as more than a walking weapon, more than his powers. For standing with him as the world ended. For her stubborn belief that even as he was useless he was still worth something. For her endless well of hope. For her absolute intolerance of bullshit. For being the one truly good thing he’s ever seen. Come to think of it he’s not sure if he properly thanked her for pulling a bullet out of him either.

“It’s no problem” she says and he gets that feeling again that maybe she’s the real mind reader, because it feels like she knows all the things he’s grateful for and it really is no problem. And maybe for her its not. She’ll always have that moral compass, she will always have that light.

She’s smiling at him again. It’s contagious. He honestly can’t remember the last time he smiled this much in a day. If he’s ever smiled this much.

It's been a hell of week and they should really wait and decompress a little, but that’s really never been in the cards for him. The life he’s lead doesn’t really lend itself to recuperation. Maybe it can now. Maybe he can get to a place where every second doesn’t feel stolen, every scrap of joy doesn’t need to be guarded like life is going to rip it away at the first opportunity. Old habits break hard though.

He wants this. So he kisses her. Standing in her ordinary living room, mundane and normal, he gets to kiss this extraordinary girl, who’s patient and kind and brave and handles strange better than anyone could have ever asked. He kisses her and she kisses him back and in that dim living room he thinks he can feel the beginning of a future in a world that wants him.


End file.
